Easily override instance name

[xmik]

I'd like to differentiate virtual machines by name at a cloud dashboard. (Especially I want to know which machines were created by Test-Kitchen.) When I use Vagrant, I can set instance name in Vagrantfile in the following way:

Vagrant.configure('2') do |config|
  config.vm.define "my-vagrant-vm", primary: true do |my_vm|
    my_vm.vm.provision :chef_solo do |chef|
      ...
    end
  end
end

In result when I look at a cloud dashboard, I see the name of virtual machine created with Vagrant is "my-vagrant-vm". (I tested it with vagrant-openstack-provider 0.6.1 and Vagrant 1.6.5). I'd like to be able to set instance name in .kitchen.yml and see the same result.

kitchen-openstack has a nice feature to add only a prefix in instance name (server_name_prefix option) while the rest of the name is generated. But setting the whole instance name is enough for my case.

This is related to #144, but for me setting vm.name in Vagrantfile never worked, when I run vagrant status I get this error The following settings shouldn't exist: name. I must have set it in bad scope. When I set it in provider scope, it works:

config.vm.provider :openstack do |os|
      os.server_name = 'my-vagrant-vm'
end

However due to #171 I could not set it in .kitchen.yml in customize section.

EDIT: I should have added that setting vm_hostname in .kitchen.yml had no effect, the instance name and hostname was "default". (Most probably kitchen-vagrant is not the place for fixing it).

After #172 is merged, this is not longer needed to meet my initial goal. Still I offer a pull request which sets config.vm.define "<your_machine_name>" in generated Vagrantfile, because this way:

• you can set this even if your vagrant provider does not support this
• you don't have to set it explicitly in each .kitchen.yml (by default machine name and hostname is "kt-{kitchen_root_directory}-{instance_name}")

As I see in Readme some people do not like changing their hostname, so I'll update my PR so that setting in .kitchen.yml vm_hostname = false will result in not changing hostname and machine name in cloud dashboard.

[xmik]

I updated the PR with the 2nd commit. Let me know if you want that behavior, I can then update tests which verify generated Vagrantfile.

[arielsalvo]

+1

Hi,

I also have issue with using {kitchen_root_directory} as part of the instance name due to directories with the same name or too long.

How about using a CRC32 of the full path?
It would make the instance name unique and shorter, getting the actual path would still be easy by running vagrant global-status and it should be quite easy to implement too.

Any thoughts?

[cheeseplus]

It appears that #172 was already merged - I feel like the issue should be closed unless that PR didn't actually fix things?

@xmik can you comment?

[arielsalvo]

Ah, I see what you mean about #172 .

Do you think I should open a new issue regarding my comment about {kitchen_root_directory} ?

[cheeseplus]

That would be great! If it's still a problem we'd love make sure it at least gets recorded and if you're feeling up to it a PR would be even better :D

[arielsalvo]

Will do!
I was looking at what needs to change in the code.

Thanks!

[cheeseplus]

Closing this issue as discussed.

[xmik]

Since #171 was merged, I've been setting vm name under customize section (using vagrant-openstack-provider), e.g.:

platforms:
  - name: ubuntu-vagrant
    driver:
      name: vagrant
    driver_config:
      customize:
        server_name: 'kt-my_cookbook-ubuntu'

Here I also suggested to set default machine name to kt-{kitchen_root_directory}-{instance_name}, but it could end up being really long and I don't use the #169 PR anymore. So it's good you closed this issue.